Sunday, September 13, 2009

It is done, complete, finis, cooked, printed, boxed, and ready to be shipped across the Pond tomorrow! I have been petting the Egg in preparation for its journey; giving it all kinds of good vibes; willing it to be compelling and clear.

Today, I finished it and then hesitated a moment. "One more read-through?", I thought. Then I suddenly got nauseated at the thought of looking through it one more time, so I made the chapters into pdfs and loaded them up to Kinko's. That's how you know it's ready to send off!

I went to get a celebratory milkshake and headed off to Kinko's to pick up the manuscript. When he gave it to me, I took it out of the box and held it up in front of me (just like Excaliber) and said, "this is my book!" - and the little old lady behind me actually clapped. It was very sweet. The Kinko's guy just sighed dramatically and shuffled off.

Now, it's home to eat leftover pork fried rice...

Updated to Add: It was a "Banilla" Milkshake from Steak 'n Shake - side by side vanilla and banana...yummmmm.....

Saturday, September 12, 2009

Okay - the Egg is almost done. And I do mean almost...but, in honor of Sisyphus, who needs something to read, even if it's a boring old random To Do List, here's what's left on the Egg and the State of the Medieval Woman Union:

Egg To Do:1) Look at my notes on a couple of last critics to insert paragraph into "Woefully Bad But At Least In Existence" Conclusion.

2) Look at last romance text to beef up section in "Woefully Bad But At Least In Existence" Conclusion.

3) Find certain page number ranges for a couple of articles in the bibliography.

4) Do one more pass through of the footnotes in the MS.

5) Quickly proofread and revise "Woefully Bad But At Least In Existence" Conclusion. How much better will it get? Not much. But at least it's done. Did anyone else's Conclusion kind of suck? It's not badly written, it's just uninspired...

6) Make chapters into pdfs and upload them to Kinkos to have them printed out.

7) Write cover letter to editor.

8) Send the f*cker out! BY MONDAY! Woo-hoo!

Random Bits of Early Semester Fluffage:1) Classes going well - haven't really been able to think about them as much as I'd like with Egg still hanging over my head. Grad class is exhausting.

2) TD and I will meet up in a Hub Airport this Thursday evening and fly to the Real Dutchmanlandia for a weekend wedding. We'll be back on Monday. I hope to grade response papers on the plane.

3) I don't like taking my temperature every morning and peeing on sticks. It's tedious.

4) I'm going to give an invited talk at a grad school friend's school in October. She said they can pay airfare, hotel, and a modest stipend. What college out there has money for this right now? Not that I'm complaining...

5) [TYPED WHILE TOUCHING AS MUCH WOOD AS I CAN; IN FACT, I SHUDDER TO EVEN TYPE IT] TD has a good lead on a job here, not in academia but in a research think-tank (about an hour away). He met with a dude in one of their many research groups who has ties with the Dream Academy. He told TD that they were looking for someone with TD's specific skill set and research focus and said to let him know when TD applied so he could track his application. Several days after the very nice meeting, TD gets an email from the leader of this research group (who's stationed in another state, but some of them are); she had spoken with the first dude TD met and wanted to set up a time for a phone conversation. This happened Monday and they talked for an hour about "possibilities at [Insert name of company here]." She said that the next step is for TD to send them a sample of his work and she would look at it and circulate it among the rest of the group. He should also fill out the company's general application form online. Then, they'll decide if they want to invite him out for a visit where he would give a talk, etc. and they'd basically see if he was crazy or cool and someone they'd like to work with (the last part is my interpolation). Because the company is so massive (largely gov't contracts) and employs so many different specialists in various fields for numerous research groups, it seems like TD will just need to be liked and desired by the members of this particular group (and perhaps some closely related groups), as they are the folks he'll be working with.

But, there you have it - all the info I have. I'm trying desperately not to speculate on his chances, what it would mean to us if it succeeded, etc. This is veeeeery hard for me because, after all, my full name is:

So, with that I give you what's happenin' around here - I'm off to Chick-Fil-A and then to my office to do some work. Tonight, I'm going with my friend J to Chili's and to see the new Kate Beckinsale flick. Can you see an eating pattern emerging? Wait, was it ever submerged???

"It was lying on a butcher's block, not crying, although there was snow, but warm and chuckling under a comforter of stray cats. They were all purring together, and the sound was heavy with knowledge. I stood by the strange cradle for a long time, pondering while the snow fell and the cats purred prophecy."